In successive incarnations there is not only a thread of continuity and identity (as manifested in the personal memory revived in advanced souls), but there is uninterrupted reign of the law of cause and effect, through the persistence and operation of Karma. The successive, incarnations, with all their particulars, are closely and unfailingly determined by a rational law, so that it becomes possible for the individual soul to mould its future through intelligent action. The actions of past lives determine the conditions and circumstances of the present life; and the actions of the present life have their share in determining the conditions and circumstances of future lives. the successive incarnations yield their full significance, only in the light of the operation of the law of Karma.

Persistence of Karma through the mental body

Incarnations in the physical world are only apparently disconnected. Karma persists as a connecting link and the determining factor through the mental body, which remains a permanent and constant factor through the lives of the soul. The law of Karma and its manner of operation cannot be fully intelligible as long as the physical body and the physical world are considered to be the only facts of existence. Karmic determination is made possible by the existence of subtle and mental bodies and worlds.

The planes on which one possesses physical consciousness is the physical world. The planes on which one possesses consciousness of desires are the subtle world. And the planes on which one has mental consciousness are the mental world. The source of desire is in the mind, which is on the mental planes. Here, the seed of desire is attached to the mind; the desire exists here in an involved form in the same way as the tree is latent in the seed. The mental body, which is the seat of the mind, is often called Karana Sharira or the causal body because it stores within itself the seeds of the causes of all desires. The mind retains all impressions dispositions in a latent form. The limited "I" or the ego is composed of these sanskaras. However, the actual manifestation of sanskaras in consciousness, as expressed through different mental processes, takes place in the subtle body.

The self which is one and undifferentiated, gets apparently individualized through the limitations of the mental body, which is the seat of the ego-mind. The ego-mind is formed by the accumulated impressions of the past experiences and actions; and it is the ego-mind that constitutes the kernel of the existence of the reincarnating individual. The ego-mind as a reservoir of latent impressions in the state of the mental body; the ego-mind experiencing activated and manifested impressions is the state of the subtle body; and the ego-mind as descended in the gross sphere for creative action in the state of a physical incarnation. Thus, the ego-mind, which is seated in the mental body, is the entity that has all the phases of continued existence as a separate individual.

The ego-mind takes lower bodies according to the impressions stored in it. These impressions determine whether a person will die young or old, whether he will experience health, illness or both, whether he will be beautiful or ugly, whether he will suffer from physical handicaps such as blindness, or will have bodily efficiency, whether he will have sharp or dull intellect, whether he will be pure or impure of heart, fickle or steadfast in will, and whether he will be immersed in pursuit material gains or will seek inner light of the spirit.

excerpted from GOD To MAN and MAN TO GOD , the discourses of MEHER BABA edited by C.B. Purdom, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London 1955

All words of Avatar Meher Baba are copyright of the Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Kings Road, Ahmednagar Maharashtra India. Excerpts quoted on this website from various sources are purely for the dissemination of Avatar Meher Baba's teachings.

Violence and Non-Violence

Non-violence means love infinite. It is the goal of life. When pure and infinite love is reached the aspirant is at one with god. To reach this goal there must be intense longing and the aspirant who has this longing has to begin by practicing the "non-violence of the brave". This applied to those who, though not at one with all through realization, consider none to be their enemy and try to win over even the aggressor through love; they give up their lives through love not through fear.

"Non-violence of the brave" is practicable for those who have the intense longing to attain the supreme state. This longing is not to be found in the majority, If, therefore, it is intended to lead the majority to "non-violence", it is necessary first to prepare them for the "non-violence of the brave". To achieve this in a practical way it is necessary to make them follow, in the beginning, the principle of "non-violent violence" , that is, violence done solely for defending the weak without any selfish motive. In times of war, when the masses are in the mood to listen to advice about having intense longing to attain the supreme goal of life, the only practical way to lead them towards the goal is to begin inculcating in them the principle of "non-violent violence" and then gradually introducing the "non-violence of the brave". Otherwise non-violence would not only fail but there would be serious danger of the fatal "non-violence of the coward", i.e., non-resistance to aggression because of fear.

The masses may also be led to the "non-violence of the brave" by following the principles of "selfless violence" instead of those of "non-violent violence". The selfless violence is violence done in self defense when attacked treacherously. No other motive should be allowed to justify the violence. Thus for example, were a woman threatened with violation and one defends her by resorting to violence, he is said to have followed the principles of "selfless violence". Similarly when the motherland is being attacked by enemies, the nation's effort in defending the motherland is "selfless violence". An element of selfishness being there, the love expressed is limited human love.

"Non-violence of the coward" is fatal; so also is "selfish violence", i.e. violence for selfish motives by individuals or a national to gain power or for other selfish ends.

It will be therefore seen that non-violence is the goal of life, this goal is to be attained by individual seekers of God by following "non-violence of the brave". The majority who have not the intense longing for being one with God have to be led towards this goal on the principles of non-violent violence" or "selfless violence" according to the circumstances. It must be very clearly understood that "non-violent violence" and "selfless violence" are merely the means of attaining the goal of life, name the pure and simple "Non-violence" or the "Love infinite". These means must not be confused with the goal itself.

The motive and the result are determined by the acceptance of their being good or bad; for example, "non-violence of the brave" and "non-violence of the coward" are both non-violence, but, form the viewpoint of the motive force behind it, "non-violence of the brave" is born of love and "non violence of the coward" is born out of fear, which is the opposite of love. Although as non-violence they are not opposites, their motives are opposed. The motive behind "non violence of the brave" is losing one's life to gain infinite love, and the motive behind "non-violence of the coward" is to save one's own life. So "non-violence (of the coward) we describe as "non-love", as we describe "non-violence (of the brave)" as love.

"Non-violent violence" is justified not as love, but as duty - duty done selflessly for others according to Krama Yoga" which is linked with unlimited love- but human love.

The difference between these two opposite forces cannot be obliterated; but the transformation of one force to another can happen when expressed through right channels. Food given wrongly becomes poison but poison given in small quantities as a tonic may become food for the nerves. Indeed, all food is poison; it is only in the power of transformation that it becomes converted into good.

War is a necessary evil; it is in God's plan to awaken humanity to higher values. If humanity fails to profit by the lessons of war, it suffers in vain. War teaches that even the man in the street can rise to the greatest heights of sacrifice for the sake of a selfless cause; it also teaches that wealth, possessions, power, fame, family and even life on earth-are devoid of lasting value. The incidents of war can through the lessons they bring win man for God, and initiate him into a new life inspired by lasting values.

In war, people make unlimited sacrifices and endure untold sufferings for the sake of their country or in the interest of political aims; they are capable of the same sacrifices and endurance for God. All religions have unequivocally claimed man for life in Truth; and it is sheer folly to fight in the name of any religion. It is time for a fresh vision of the Truth that all life is one, that only God is real, and that God is all that matters. God is worth dying for. He is also worth living for. All else is vain and empty, the pursuit of illusory values.

excerpted from GOD To MAN and MAN TO GOD , the discourses of MEHER BABA edited by C.B. Purdom, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London 1955

All words of Avatar Meher Baba are copyright of the Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Kings Road, Ahmednagar Maharashtra India. Excerpts quoted on this website from various sources are purely for the dissemination of Avatar Meher Baba's teachings.

God and the Individual

T

here is on being, the Universal Being. The existence of the finite is apparent or imaginary. You are infinite. You are everywhere. But you think you are the body, and consider yourself limited. If you think you are the body, you do not know your true nature. If you would look within and experience your own self in its true nature, you would realize that you were infinite and beyond all creation. But you identify yourself with the body, due to ignorance made effective through the medium of mind. Man thinks himself to be the physical body; when spiritually advanced he thinks himself to be the psychic body; the saint thinks he is the mind; but in these thoughts, man does not experience self-knowledge. As spirit, man is infinite, but under the sway of the mind he becomes a "thinker" or a "saint", sometimes identifying himself with the body, sometimes with the mind. From the point of view of one of who has not gone beyond Maya, it seems that there are as many individuals as there are minds and bodies. In Truth there is one Universal Being behind the minds of seemingly different individuals, who through them has the experiences of duality.

The cause of false thinking

Thinking becomes false owing to the interference of the sanskaras accumulated during the process of the evolution of consciousness, which manifest themselves as desires. Through many lives consciousness is burdened by the after-effects of experience, and the perception of the soul is limited. The soul cannot break through the hedge created by sanskaras, and consciousness becomes a helpless captive of illusions projected by its own false thinking. And this falsification of thought is present not only where consciousness is partly developed, buts also in men who consider themselves to be fully developed.

The progressive evolution of consciousness beginning with the stone culminates in man. The history of evolution is the history of a gradual development of consciousness, and the fruit of evolution is full consciousness, which is the particular characteristic of man. But even full consciousness is like a mirror covered by dust, for owing to the operation of sanskaras it does not yield clear and true knowledge of the nature of the self. Though fully developed it yields not truth but an imaginary picture because its functioning is hindered by the weight of the sanskaras. Moreover it cannot extend beyond its desires, and therefore is limited in its scope.

The individuation of consciousness

The boundaries of consciousness are prescribed by the sanskaras and its functioning determined by the desires; as desires aim at self satisfaction, consciousness is self-centered. The individuation of consciousness may be said to be the effect of the vortex of desires. The soul gets enmeshed in desires, and cannot rise out of the individuality constituted by them. It imagines barriers and becomes self-hypnotized. It looks upon itself as separate from other individuals. It gets entangled in individual existence, and a world of separateness, with many individuals and their minds and bodies.

Separateness exists in imagination

When the rays of the sun pass through a prism, they are dispersed and separate through refraction. If each ray had consciousness, it would consider itself to be separate from the other rays, forgetting the other side of the prism. In the same way the One Being descends in the domain of Maya and assumes multiplicity. The separateness of individuals exits only in imagination. The One Being imagines separateness, and out of this division there rises "I" and "mine" opposed to "you" and "yours". Although the self is undivided unity, it appears to be divided owing to the working of imagination. Imagination is anything but the truth. The experience that the soul gathers in terms of the individualized ego is all imagination, Maya or ignorance.

With the birth of separate and limited individuality, there comes into existence the objective universe. As the limited individuality has separate existence only in imagination, the objective universe also has no separate reality. It is the One Being appearing in the second role of manifestation through the attributes. When the One Being descends in the domain of Maya, it takes upon itself the limitations of manifold existence. This self-limitation on the One Being might be looked upon as its self-sacrifice on the altar of consciousness. Although it eternally remains the One Being it suffers timeless contraction through its descent into the world of time and evolution. What, however, evolves is not the One Being, only the consciousness, which, because of its limitations, gives rise to the limited individuality.

The triple entanglement

The history of the limited individuality is a history of the development of the triple entanglement with the mind, energy and matter. Duality prevails in these domains, and the individual gets entangled in this duality, although the self is beyond duality. Duality implies the existence of opposites, limiting and balancing each other through mutual tension. Good and evil, virtue and vice are examples of such opposites. The ignorant soul enmeshed in duality is in the clutches of both good and evil. During the evolution of the triple entanglement with matter, energy and mind, the ignorant soul is under the influence of wanting : it wants the good and the evil of the physical world, the good and the evil of the subtle world, and the good and the evil of the mental world; and owing to the distinction of good and evil, wanting itself becomes good and evil. Wanting is to be limited by the tension of the opposites. This tension causes oscillation from one state to another, without arriving at the unlimited state. The infinite is to be sought for beyond the domain of duality, which is reached only when consciousness rises out of the limited individuality by breaking through the barriers of sanskaras.

The chasm between consciousness and unconsciousness

We have said that the field of consciousness is limited by the sanskaras. This limitation creates a division of the human psyche into two parts, one within the range of consciousness, the other beyond it. The unconscious part in its full extent is identical with the power that is also behind matter. This is referred to as God in orthodox religions. The One Being, which is symbolically represented through such concepts, can be known only by bringing the unconscious into consciousness. An extension of consciousness consists in being conscious of that which was formerly unconscious. The progressive conquest of the unconscious by the conscious culminates in the consummate consciousness, which is unlimited. Between this highest state of consciousness and the limited consciousness of the average humanity, there are forty-nine degrees of the illumined consciousness. They mark the important stages of illumination.

Spiritual advancement

The gulf between the clouded consciousness of average humanity and the fully illumined consciousness of a Master is created by sanskaras. These can be removed through the perfect character, devotion and the selfless service, and through the help of a Master. Spiritual advancement consists not so much in the further development of consciousness (for it is already developed in man), as in the emancipation of consciousness from the bondage of the sanskaras. Although in essence consciousness is the same in all the different states of existence, it can never be consummate until it reflects the knowledge of Infinity without the shadow of ignorance, and covers the whole extent of the universe illumining the different spheres of existence.

Deep Sleep

Every time you sleep you are unconsciously united with the One Being. This unification thus bridges over the chasm between the unconscious and the conscious, but being unconscious of this union, you do not consciously derive benefit from it. This is the reason why when you wake from deep sleep you become aware of the individual you suppose yourself to be, and begin to act and experience exactly as you acted and experienced before going to sleep. If your union with the One Being had been a conscious union, you would have awakened into a new life.

A Master is consciously united with the One Being. In him the chasm between consciousness and unconsciousness is bridged, not by extension of the unconscious over the conscious as in the man who enjoys deep sleep, but by the extension of the consciousness over unconsciousness. The waxing and waning of consciousness exits in the limited individual, but in the Master the conquest of the unconscious by the conscious is final and permanent, his state of self knowledge is continuous and unbroken, and remains the same at all times without diminution. From this you can see that the Master never sleeps in the ordinary sense of the word. When he rests his body experiences no gap in consciousness.

In the state of perfection full consciousness becomes consummate by the disappearance of obstacles to illumination. The conquest of the unconscious by the conscious is complete, dwelling in the full blaze of illumination. This alone is illumination. As long as a person remains under the sway of duality and looks upon the manifoldness of experience as true, he has not passed through the domain of ignorance. In the state of final understanding there is realization that the Infinite is the only reality, pervading and including all existence. A person who has such realization has attained the highest state of consciousness, in which the fruit of evolution is retained, but the limitations of sanskaras are transcended. The limited individuality, the creation of ignorance, is transformed into Divine individuality, which is understanding. The illimitable consciousness of the Universal Being becomes individualized in this focus without illusion. One thus becomes the medium of the spontaneous flow of the supreme and universal Will, unimpaired by the separateness of Maya, the state of liberation, in which there is objectless awareness, pure being and unclouded joy. Such a one has no longer the illusions that perplex and bewilder man. In one sense he is dead. The personal ego which is the source of the sense of separateness has been for ever annihilated. But in another sense he is alive for-ever-more in love and eternal bliss. He has infinite power and wisdom, and the creation is a field for the work of perfecting mankind.

excerpted from GOD To MAN and MAN TO GOD , the discourses of MEHER BABA edited by C.B. Purdom, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London 1955

All words of Avatar Meher Baba are copyright of the Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Kings Road, Ahmednagar Maharashtra India. Excerpts quoted on this website from various sources are purely for the dissemination of Avatar Meher Baba's teachings.

Meher Baba on Drugs

The user of LSD can never reach subtle consciousness in this incarnation despite its repeated use. To experience real spiritual consciousness, surrenderance to a Perfect Master is necessary. When LSD is used for genuine medical purposes, in controlled doses, under the supervision of specialists, there are no chances of brain, liver, or kidney being damaged.

Taking LSD is harmful physically, mentally, and spiritually. But if you take Me into your heart and love Me as your real Self, you will find Me in you as the infinite Ocean of love. And this experience will remain continuously throughout eternity.

No drug, whatever its great promise, can help one to attain the spiritual goal.

Drugs are delusion within illusion.

If God can be found through the medium of any drug, God is not worthy of being God.

All words of Avatar Meher Baba are copyright of the Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Kings Road, Ahmednagar Maharashtra India. Excerpts quoted on this website from various sources are purely for the dissemination of Avatar Meher Baba's teachings.

Meher Baba on Honesty

"I have lately been laying stress on honesty. If we love God honestly, we become one with Him. Never before dishonesty and hypocrisy has prevailed in the world as today . If the least hypocrisy creeps in our thoughts, words and deeds, God who is the innermost Self in us all, keeps Himself hidden.

Hypocrisy is a million-headed cobra. There are today so many so-called saints who, even though they tell people to be honest and not be hypocrites, are yet themselves deep in dishonesty.

I say with Divine Authority that I am in you all, and if you honestly love God, you will find Him everywhere. And remember, if you cannot love God, and cannot live saintly lives, then at least do not make a show of love and saintliness, because the worst scoundrels are better than hypocritical saints".

All words of Avatar Meher Baba are copyright of the Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Kings Road, Ahmednagar Maharashtra India. Excerpts quoted on this website from various sources are purely for the dissemination of Avatar Meher Baba's teachings.